The purpose of this article is to explore how the notions of risk factor research and pathways into and out of crime have attained the status of professional myth.The argument it puts forward is not about the rights or wrongs of policy or practice based on risk factor research. Partly this is because it is not written by a criminologist but by a researcher interested in ethnographic work with young people and their local communities. Neither is it primarily an argument about the truthfulness or falsehood of myths. Rather, it is a discussion of how a model has moved from being a generative metaphor to a professional myth. In making this argument the article offers a critique of the complex relationship between the values and beliefs of practitioners and their interactions with the discourses, ideologies and structures around them. In arguing that ‘pathways’ has moved from a generative metaphor (Schon, 1993) to professional myth the article explores how myths function socially within different groups of professions, and the relationship between their social function and individual use. This argument is in part derived from an exploration of the cultural status of any given myth within a profession and the metaphors that underpin them. The discussion of the process of mythmaking, and its impact on professionals is illustrated principally through an analysis of the narratives offered by two different professionals working with young people.
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